John Farrell Claims to Harp on Discipline Despite Yunel Escobar's Incident, Omar Vizquel's Criticism

BOSTON –– The end of John Farrell's tenure with the Blue Jays was messy -- to say the least. Midway through September, Toronto shortstop Yunel Escobar was suspended for three games after officials noticed his eye black contained a gay slur. Outsiders questioned Farrell's control of the clubhouse, since the issue initially went unnoticed. After his introductory news conference on Tuesday, Farrell stood his ground concerning the controversy. "In terms of other situations and Escobar's eye-black situation, there's a minimum amount of professionalism expected," Farrell said. "I would suspect that his teammates would have said something to him. The fact is he wrote some things on his eye black on a number of occasions. Never once was it malicious to my understanding. To think he had written something that was offensive to a large portion of the population, it was wrong. He paid the price in terms of discipline on that. " Two weeks ...